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Enid Tsui

Alice Yeung Hoi-ching does not just write music for listening; she writes music that is meant to be seen.
The Switzerland-based, Hong Kong-born composer with a first degree in composition and electronic music from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) creates dramatic, visceral experiences that transform concert halls into theatres – and her inventiveness is getting noticed.
She has won a wide range of commissions in her home city, from the Hong Kong Sinfonietta (HKS) to the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble.
She also performed at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Venice in 2024, and has collaborated with many European groups, including the Dutch National Opera & Ballet. And she is only 27.
Blending music with sounds from daily life
Her work Wings’ Matra, which was commissioned in 2024 for the HKS, has to do with her phobia of pigeons – a condition that is not uncommon due to the size of urban flocks.
It features orchestra members speaking, stamping their feet, ruffling sheets of paper and making a racket using objects such as megaphones and thundersheets in a way that is both unsettling and visually exciting.

Similarly, her recent work Elegy is a concatenation of orchestral music and sounds from daily life. This haunting, personal memory of a period of mental struggle conjures a landscape of destruction and agonising tension, heightened by the sound of fully inflated balloons being rubbed before a melodic release.
Yeung says the balloons were a visual device as much as a sonic one; during Ensemble TaG’s performance of the piece in Switzerland in March, they were designed to stand out on the darkened stage like the red balloon in the Stephen King horror film, It.
Yeung’s most ambitious work to date, Time (in-)Linear, will premiere at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall on June 27. Another HKS commission, it promises to up the ante when it comes to onstage activities.
The performance, which will feature harmonica virtuoso CY Leo and pianist Daniel Chu, is quite possibly the world’s first double concerto written for chromatic harmonica and jazz piano.
“Last July, we three met for the first time, and we talked about notations, what they are comfortable with, and speed,” Yeung says.
“This 30-minute piece is really challenging for me since I have no background in jazz. CY Leo is incredible; I know I can really push his speed limit.
“As for Daniel, I studied how he improvises, and I have written text prompts in the score that can unlock his beast mode, to set off his bursts of creativity.”

Held at knifepoint
An unexpected, added challenge came for Yeung when she was mugged on a street late at night in Bern, Switzerland, just before her flight to Hong Kong for rehearsals.
The assailant demanded her backpack, which contained her laptop. Desperate, she begged to keep the computer, telling him it held all her music and her life’s work, but he refused while brandishing a rusty knife. “If it hadn’t been a rusty knife, I would have fought him,” Yeung says.
At least everything on the laptop had been backed up – unlike this writer’s, which was stolen from a coach in Rome recently – leaving her with a workable draft to finish upon arriving in Hong Kong in June.
Bern is not known for street crime, but Yeung says she was walking through a dodgy area after finishing her part-time late-night shift as a barista.
Yeung started working as a barista when she was studying for her first master’s in composition at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague in the Netherlands, where she was on a full scholarship. Now, this work gives her helpful income while she finishes a second master’s degree at Bern University of the Arts.
Even though Hong Kong has a vibrant music scene with prominent composers such as Lo Hau-man and Joyce Tang Wai-chung, who have pioneered the incorporation of everyday objects into music-making, Yeung discovered another level of open-mindedness in the Netherlands.
“You can do anything you like. So for me it was a mind-blowing experience,” she says.
Yeung had a classical upbringing in music – her mother, who played the piano, encouraged her to start playing at the age of three. As a teenager, Yeung learned classical composition at the HKAPA junior school, and later expanded into electronic music for her bachelor’s degree.
She felt she had barely started exploring the possibilities of new music when she finished at the Royal Conservatoire at 24, hence her pursuit of a second master’s, this time focusing on theatre and music. She has also started making films.

Keeping the creative process fun and personal
Her work Time (in-)Linear is about the right to daydream and properly experience each moment of our hectic lives. “In a way, it is a reaction to the relentless pace of contemporary society,” she says. During the upcoming Hong Kong performance, the conductor Christoph Poppen will periodically shout out a time in German through a megaphone.
One good thing that came out of the mugging for Yeung was that she had to live offline for a week – her phone was taken too. She found that without digital distractions, her sense of time and sensitivity to her surroundings shifted dramatically, allowing her thoughts to become clearer.
She likes Switzerland – coincidentally, her friends, composer Charles Kwong and his wife and collaborator Sharon Chan, also live there – and may stay on to pursue a PhD.
Yeung remains committed to one core philosophy: keeping the creative process fun and personal.
“I have thoughts about the outside world, but my music always ends up being connected to who I am. I am no longer trying to come up with a distinct sound. As long as I write what I feel like, it is my voice. The main thing is to keep it fun.”
Concerto for Chromatic Harmonica, Jazz Piano and Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, June 27, 8pm, Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall. For more information and to buy tickets, click here.


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Hong Kong composer Alice Yeung is known for her dramatic, visceral music. Her most ambitious work to date, Time (in-)Linear, will premiere at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall on June 27 with a performance featuring harmonica virtuoso CY Leo and pianist Daniel Chu. Photo: May Tse

Hong Kong Sinfonietta musicians ruffle sheets of paper while performing Wings’ Matra at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall on April 13, 2024. Photo: HKS

Yeung and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, with conductor Christoph Poppen, stand for an ovation after the premiere of Yeung’s work Wings’ Matra on April 13, 2024, at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall. Photo: HKS

Yeung remains committed to one core philosophy: keeping the creative process fun and personal. Photo: May Tse

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Alice Yeung’s Time (in-)Linear, featuring harmonica virtuoso CY Leo and pianist Daniel Chu, is possibly the first of its kind in the world


Alice Yeung’s Time (in-)Linear, featuring harmonica virtuoso CY Leo and pianist Daniel Chu, is possibly the first of its kind in the world.


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How Hong Kong composer Alice Yeung overcame knifepoint mugging to debut most daring work

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Alice Yeung’s Time (in-)Linear, featuring harmonica virtuoso CY Leo and pianist Daniel Chu, is possibly the first of its kind in the world

Alice Yeung’s Time (in-)Linear, featuring harmonica virtuoso CY Leo and pianist Daniel Chu, is possibly the first of its kind in the world